Page:By Sanction of Law.pdf/90

 leaving home, Mrs. Cottman as she pronounced the curse on the Lauriston family.

She decided to return to Louise's room and make sure she had heard aright and that the girl was insane. Thought of the possibility of the words being true, however, deterred her. She wrestled with the torturing situation alone. She was on the verge of insanity herself from thinking over the words. Her lips became dry and parched; her room stiffling to the point of suffocation.

The hours rushed by and she was still neither near relief nor able to think herself free of the situation. Along toward midnight the moon rose and along with this a slight breeze began to stir. With a sudden gust of wind a shutter at her window swung open and the beams of a soft night shining moon streamed into the room. As the light came in she recalled the night in the fall when she had prayed from that window to be given the man she loved. As she lived through that scene again relief seemed to come to her and tortures to vanish from her mind.

As they disappeared in their place came a resolution to seek the facts as to Louise's statements from Bennet himself. She felt so sure her worries had been baseless and the words of her schoolmate those of a raving irresponsible madness, that at last sleep overcame her and she dozed into fitful dreams. The sun was high in the morning sky before she opened her eyes again. When she did, however, her worries returned. Both her heart and head began to pain intensely, maddeningly. The words of her schoolmate again burned themselves so hotly into her soul that